canalon wrote:OK enarees, this is a scientific forum, not the place for mystical divagations. So please provide logic reasonning and facts that could support your assertions...

And I imagine that if as it is said, the proof is in the pudding, this is the kind of pudding with ingredients that would not all be considered legal or advisable...

Think!

Variety of species

If one specimen evolved in new specie through mutation, how in just moment and place evolved his partner, mutated in just same specie?

In a special case: Adam is new specie, but he haven't partner of his specie - androgenesis is the answer. This is hidden in The Book of THE CLAN and in the book of Darwin, who is son of CLAN. (Among birds the answer is parthenogenesis.)By androgenesis are selected new genes. And the daughters of new specie tempted some of Adam's similars.

On behalf of the scientists that contribute to this forum, I apologise. You asked good questions, but nonsense has crept into this thread, as so often happens in this forum.

The formation of new species is a one-time affair. It occurs by the slow accumulation of genetic changes over long periods of time. All organisms are shaped by the environments in which they live. They adapt to changes in a way that helps them to survive and reproduce. Humans and the apes that live at the present time are different. At some time in the past, we all shared a common ancestor. That ancestor lived in an environment that is different than today's environment. Today's apes are different than the common ancestor was. So you have different apes living in different environments. The genetic changes that are always occurring are therefore different. If all humans were to disappear, today's apes would continue to change in response to their environments, and maybe in time one or more species would acquire characteristics similar to our own, but they would not be the same. Perhaps they could even become very intelligent, and walk on two legs as we do, and develop social systems more advanced than their present systems, maybe even become scientifically advanced, but they would not be human. They would be like humans in many ways, but genetically, they would be different. There is such a thing called convergent evolution. As the name implies, different organisms can evolve similar structures or behaviours from different starting points. But convergent evolution only occurs on a small scale: perhaps similar organisms can independently evolve similar structures if they live in similar environments and have similar needs. Never have two different species evolved over time into the same species. All species continue to change over time, some slowly, some more quickly, depending on the strength of the pressures that are causing the changes. Stable environments don't force organisms to change. Changing environments do. Humans, and the dandelions on your front lawn, are evolving now in response to the changes that are occurring in our environments. That weed killer you spray on your lawn will kill most dandelions, but not all. The survivors possess some minor genetic difference that allows them to survive. This difference is passed on to the future generations through normal reproduction (just as you probably look a bit like one or both of your parents). Other environmental changes, such as increasing temperatures, will also lead to genetic changes in the dandelion populations. Some day, long in the future, today's dandelions will no longer exist. But their descendents will, and they will be different from today's dandelions. There's always only one road to any species. The world of today has never existed before and never will again. The environments in which our species evolved no longer exist, and so today's apes, which are different from the apes we evolved from, will and can never evolve into us. But we are special, aren't we. Thanks for your questions. Keep them coming, and don't let the nonsense divert you from trying to understand what evolution is.

sob wrote:similarly, why are lower animals and plants not evolving into higher animals and plants?

Dwelling into the rethoric of lower and higher animals is a fallacy, since the distinction can only be made relative to an omitted preposition: lower in terms of lineage, adaptability, organism complexity, etc are all different degrees wich can be adressed in your ambiguous question, some of them conflict with your own logic.

But, despite the semantics, i think i know where you're going with it, and i have to say that particular issue has troubled me too. The Origin of Species alone, as presented by Darwin, can't explain a lot of things. Only the phenomenon of speciation is made clear, what causes new families to emerge is something that only macro-evolution can begin to adress. Wich in my view is the scientific equivalent of a bandage. "There's too many missing links and darwin didn't leave a manual on the subject, so we'll just go forward with the idea of evolutionary leaps and hope no one notices how much that sounds like methaphysics..." The matter gets even worse when you boil it down to chemical evolution or the origin of life, that's the big bang of biology, no one can say for sure what happened up until the first multicellular organism.

Of course the problem with macro-evolution is it's empirically unprovable (apart from "ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny")There's just no way to observe it in action. In answer to your question, new races and subspecies of animals and plants are being discovered on a daily basis, there's no problem there. New genus or families however are a completely different problem, it's not impossible, in fact such discoveries have happened in the past, but on very inospitable conditions where either it was unthinkable life could exist, or there was no technology to explore it (fungi and insects mostly). And when they do get discovered it's very hard to pinpoint their ascendency, they just get fit as best possible into the big tree of life.

Predisposition is a big issue here, as scientists we are allways looking at life in darwinian terms, we should be seeking as much theoretical neutrality as possible, the same way a field ethnologist would try to strip himself of his cultural bias to better understand a foreign people. We should not be teaching evolution the same way a priest teaches the bible (as a cosmogeny), that's probably what got us into the whole creationist dispute in the first place. It's still only a theory people (a brilliant but flawed and incomplete one), let's not get carried away. We're only half-way through the big puzzle at best. My hope goes to epigenetics and a complete understanding of neurology before accepting Darwin as the Messiah. And we might find in the process we'll need a completely different concept to understand life.

Also, i hope a 2000 year-old book is not the pinnacle of our enlightnement or we might aswell give up on evolving.pun intended

Last edited by lifemare on Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Wow. I wonder what would take for someone to believe in that. For a book like that to be possible, you would either have to believe in a noosphere where universal gnosis (god if you will) rests undisturbed and eternal, accessible only to extremely intuitive people (since it was written and translated over and over by men - actually, men with a lot of rooted pagan beliefs) whose ability somehow was never rivalled before or after the bible in whole of Men's existence; or you'd have to believe in the ancient astronauts theory: spiritual or technologically superior beings who took upon the task of educating the human race after the flood, bestowing upon us the gifts of art, agriculture and science as all the myths seem to corroborate, and giving us all their knowledge just before leaving, wich we were too primitive to understand in any other form than cryptic allegories, therefor transmitted along the ages in a code nobody really understood yet somehow reached us today intact enough to be decyphered. That's an hell of an imagination (and not very christian of you)! Unless of course you just believe in it out of faith.

Last edited by lifemare on Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

I must say, lifemare, for someone presenting an other-than-evolution viewpoint, you are at least doing us the dignity of putting at least some thought into your statements. Rather refreshing from the usual creationist rubbish, I find. In fact I am even willing to forgive you for misquoting me; the quote you attributed to me was actually spoken by enarees, not I. Scroll up and verify your source.

That said, I will disagree with you on this:

lifemare wrote:New genus or families however are a completely different problem

Not completely true. In fact, in my currenty biology class I have been surprised to learn about new genera and even a whole new phylum that are very new discoveries. Also, the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is a false one that (as far as I am aware) is not substantiated by any known evidence. In my opinion, common sense dictates that enough small changes produce big changes, and so a lot of microevolution eventually leads to macroevolution. I see no problem there.

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

alextemplet wrote:the quote you attributed to me was actually spoken by enarees, not I

sorry about that, edited.

alextemplet wrote:in my currenty biology class I have been surprised to learn about new genera and even a whole new phylum that are very new discoveries.

yes i'm aware of that, i've said as much in my post. Deep-sea invertebrates are constantly being added to the tree, new algae, caldera microorganisms, usually we're talking about very uncharted territories like the australian outback, the polar regions, the tropical jungles, etc. You got me curious though, do you remember wich phylum you talked in your class? would like to know.

alextemplet wrote:the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution is a false one

Well, i didn't meant it was a different field. Macroevolution can be explained by common descent in a gradual accumulation of microevolutions within a species. But there's also the belief that evolutionary leaps (ie:single-generation differentiation, homeotic mutants) fit best with paleontologic data. Though i may be wrong. Either way i don't disagree with the possibility, but it's still early to carve it in stone.